Nancy Pelosi a “team player” on Syria

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, led opposition to Congressional authorization for the Iraq War under former president George W. Bush, but is a lead supporter of an intervention in Syria under President Obama. Political scientists told comrade Carla Marinucci that one difference is that Pelosi’s job now is to muster support for the administration.

Henry Brady, Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, said Pelosi is “being a team player,” who as an inside player is “very attuned to the president’s status and prestige and the sense that he’s efficacious. That is what is on the line now.’’

Everyone has been let off the hook, at least temporarily, by Syria’s acceptance of a Russian proposal to disarm its chemical weapons arsenal. It’s not even clear what Obama is going to ask tonight in his rare Oval Office address. Votes are off for now.

UC Berkeley political scientist Eric Schickler, author of several books on Congress, said the Syria crisis has put Pelosi “in a really difficult position,” forced to help Obama try to pass a war resolution despite strong opposition from the pubic and many Democrats, particularly in Pelosi’s Bay Area base.

“One of the jobs of the party’s leader is to support the president of your party, except under the most extenuating circumstances,” Schickler said. “If she didn’t have such liberal credentials already, she would be in much more vulnerable position.”

Pelosi has said she will leave members to vote their conscience on Syria, but she has been very active trying to influence members. But Pelosi “is not in a position to punish Democrats for going against the president,” Schickler said, because there are too many of them.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, said Monday night going into a Pentagon briefing on Capitol Hill, that Syria is “a vote of conscience for each and every one of us, one that we have to live with the rest of our lives.”

Such votes transcend “being a good Democrat, or being a good caucus member,” Speier said.

California members uniformly said they heard strong public opposition in their districts. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, said at a town hall meeting with 700 constituents, “not one of them thought it was a good idea to bomb Syria,” and many were “conservative farmers.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, said of the 700 or so calls she’s received, less than 20 support a strike. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Fresno, said his more conservative constituents in the Central Valley also are opposed.